You (Bill Broadley) wrote:
>
> > What do you need the svga controller and accelerator for? I thought we
> > were going for a dumb frame buffer?
> >
> > hp
> If we just put a connector on the board for vesa then we can have
> an upgradable video card while concentrating on the important stuff
> like the cpu, memory, dma etc.
This is another option we should seriously consider. It would also
solve the ISA vs. proprietary I/O bus controversy.
The mails I answered were about choosing the right chips for on board
video, however. Most people here seem to think building an on-board
frame buffer will be easier and/or faster than building a VESA
interface and using a VESA video card (or maybe it is just more
interesting). I don't know much about hardware (and less about VESA),
so I cannot comment on that. Personally I think that the MIPS CPU is
fast enough to saturate the memory bandwidth of the frame buffer, so we
won't gain much performance from an accelerator.
Just to summarize (and see if I missed something):
CPU: Seems to be settled. 3051 and 3081 have same pin layout, so
everybody can use what he needs and can afford.
Video: Most people prefer on board dumb frame buffer. Some want a VESA
interface. Accelerator (at least TMS 340x0) seems out.
SCSI: onboard
I/O bus: Heavy controversy between ISA-fans and people who want a
simple 8-bit bus to build their own hardware for. Personally
I'd like something which I can hook onto the 16-bit (18 with
parity) FIFO of our real time computers :-)
Serial: At least one on board for early development.
Everything else: on I/O bus.
--
| _ | Peter J. Holzer | Think of it |
| |_|_) | Technical University Vienna | as evolution |
| | | | Computer Science/Real-Time Systems | in action! |
| __/ | hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at | Tony Rand |